Dish c. 1938

Curator: Right now we’re looking at John Tarantino’s, “Dish,” circa 1938. It’s rendered with watercolor and pencil on toned paper. What catches your eye first? Editor: It has a kind of serene formality. The way it floats there, alone. I'm struck by the cool teal color, so precise and ethereal. And what looks like a scale beneath the image—inches or centimeters? Curator: A cool detachment indeed! It's clearly a study. The scale suggests a kind of clinical, objective eye. Perhaps for industrial design? There's a Renaissance stillness about it too. But the teal makes it also feel otherworldly, or even radioactive! Editor: Absolutely! The color vibrates. Dish as vessel carries layers: sacred, domestic, and futuristic all at once, don’t you think? The symmetry is so precise; is that why the addition of the measuring scale seems so crucial? Almost as if challenging us: beauty in utility? Curator: Perhaps! Though symmetry, in the symbol world, evokes ideas about order, stability, reflection. Water, in a bowl… or even a magic mirror, maybe? Then there’s the pencil under-drawing, just visible—like a ghost of the artistic process. Editor: The ghostliness makes it even more compelling. As though we are seeing something usually unseen. Tarantino seems to strip away the layers of context, leaving only the form and light, but also the method, very visible! It transforms a mundane object into an almost sacred space. A quiet challenge. Curator: Yes, I leave thinking what stories might the objects we use everyday possess... How they transform or touch us! Editor: Well, after seeing Tarantino's rendering, I, for one, will contemplate my humble soup bowl more thoughtfully.